Friday, 23 December 2016

This was a special release for the Edinburgh Cadenhead’s shop back in August. I made notes back in October after we split one, but got distracted and just found them. This was one per customer and sold out quickly back then, but you might find it in auctions, well worth seeking out (these shop selected casks are always amazing).

Remember next year is the 175th anniversary at Cadenhead’s, so there will be much, much more of this kind of thing happening! Can’t wait.

Springbank Cadenheads 19 years old, 53.4% A⊕+

Nose - Complex, robust and elegant. Perfumed, parmas and peat. And Parma ham? Springbank ages so quickly! It's like an old Caol Ila but gentler, with crab apple jelly and preserved lemons. Chalky bonbons round out this slightly baffling but incredible nose. Even better with water, with oaked white wine and fizzers.

Thursday, 22 December 2016

This was a tweet tasting that Douglas Laing, in typical fashion, really pushed the boat out on with the packaging and samples – four grains with matching (and very posh) confectionary. I don't really hold with whisky pairings but somehow this was more special. Grains seem to go very well with pastry and sweets and these were very good grains and very good sweets!

Unfortunately I had to miss the actual tasting due to work and life getting in the way (as seems to be the case with all tweet tastings recently, I very sadly had to miss the Balcones one this week to a wedding on a Monday!) but that means I put my effort into writing these notes later and without distraction.

Body - Great balance of robust grain and really rich, fatty banana fudge. Simple but just delicious to drink.

Finish - Medium long with soft vanilla oils throughout.

A really lovely character to this easy drinking but structured grain, I'd happily settle into a bottle of this.

With "mini Christmas cakes" - incorrectly. The two certainly play off each other nicely, I think the cake is enhanced by the whisky, but the whisky is better on its own. Excellent eating experience though!

Nose - Bright with green apples, candy cigarettes and fruit polos. More perfumed than the Lomond (and more complex, mature cask) but with a sweeter, fudgier note. It is also lovely, this year really has been a good year for grains! With time there's something like toilet freshener (in a good way), and warm dessert wine. There is a good funk on the nose here too - big fat crayons and buttercream icing. Better with water; more fruit, more wax.

Another great drinker. Slightly more interest to it but a little less robust.

With "crème brulee chocolate cups" (which are f'ing delicious), the apple notes of the whisky become the backbone of the intensely creamy chocolates - the chocolate wins on the finish but the whisky ties the whole thing together.

These cup things are superb with peated whisky too, there's a delicious crunch that really goes well with them - where can I buy these!

Nose - Dark and winey, with red cherries and big, deep waxes. Quite a step up from the Cambus, this has blood orange, furniture polish, royal icing, black forest gateaux, stewed red peppers in red wine and the general demeanour of a properly important whisky. The grain character is a bit of a footnote here - dried fruit, earth, cut flowers and cask are centre stage.

Finish - Medium, more paper, a hint of fly paper and a squeeze of lemon juice.

I didn't get to add water to this one. Big and bold on the nose, hard but interesting grain on the delivery. Delicious.

With "spiced Christmas fudge" - incorrectly. This works amazingly, it makes the fudge taste like chocolate. And it removes all the paper and makes the whisky taste almost sherried. I bet the tiny Christmas cake would have been even better though!

Refill hogshead DL11182. Douglas Laing really know how to knock it out of the park.

Nose - Less exciting on the nose than the Garnheath (more restrained), but fresher and with an even more complex style. More plastics, more plasticine, more clay. Overripe, browning apple, roasted pineapple and melted crayons.

Body - Ah… that is enormous. The pineapple comes first, then pancakes with maple syrup, then light peat and bananas.

Finish - Very long, very fruity. Extremely drying too. Waxes and floral notes keep trying to peak out from the cask but they're overpowered by tannins and wood (in a delicious, highly compelling way). This is a finish that speaks directly to your hind-brain. Your hind-brain wants another sip.

An extraordinarily compelling whisky, excitingly pitched with a real peat hit about it. I love it.

With "barley sugars and christmas flavoured hard candies" - I went with the barley sugar. Which is remarkable for some reason I can't quite fathom - it's a simple block of almost pure sugar, but has real complexity (slightly medicinal, woody). Where do you get incredible sweets like this? Anyway, with the whisky, it's almost pornographic on the nose - this is most unexpected - I probably should keep this to myself. Much, much younger on the delivery with this weird, austere, simple/complex sweet in my mouth. Makes me feel younger!

An unexpectedly fascinating and exciting whisky pairing and some great whiskies here. I would recommend the Lomond and the Invergordon if you can push the boat out to it.

Saturday, 10 December 2016

I’ve had this one a while and split it with a few friends (as we did #1 – reviewed in the middle of this lot), and am close to finishing the remains of the bottle, so a review is overdue!

I’ve really been enjoying Macallan recently. When I toured the distillery, I couldn’t have had a more in-depth and intense tour, we saw pretty much everything. We saw (as you do in most distilleries to be fair) the massive amounts of care taken to produce the spirit, look after it and select and blend it into releases. There’s a whole team at the distillery dedicated to blending together the whisky, and they take real pride. And of course Macallan is famous for good reason.

Quite the most orange bottle and box you've ever seen, which I wholeheartedly approve of.

Nose - Warmer and more "OB" than the Ed1, so it's a little softer, a little more elegant with stronger cask influence. Dried apricots, fresh peach and crayons. Felt tip pens, glace cherries and a new box of Marlboro lights. There really is that special something you only get with a properly blended whisky - a balance thing. Brighter fruits and more cask with water. Beautiful, really.

Body - Far drier than the Ed1, with toast and truffle honey, and spicy tobacco, but that characteristic heavy sherry Mac is lurking in the background. A bright, rich fruitiness, like Vimto has (not that it tastes of Vimto), and good balanced tannins. Everything disappears with water though, it's sold at 48.2% for good reason.

Finish - Quite short with Cherry Ripes and stewed tea. Clean and considered, wax cask at the end.

Another delicious OB Macallan meant to be enjoyed in a tumbler while chatting, not in a Glencairn in front of a laptop. Well recommended.

Compared to Ed1, it's less winey and I prefer 1’s oranges and lip salve on the nose. The nose on Ed1 also seems more Asian side by side and more spicy. Ed2 is definitely more classy. Both are great whiskies, and both very Macallan – I think I prefer Edition 1 though. Just a bit more power. Both I could happily work through a bottle of.

Friday, 2 December 2016

December’s outturn is usually where you get the big guns, after the volume outturn in November and everyone’s bought their presents, they buy something for themselves. That whole setup is becoming very expensive for me! Also, getting this one in the can is something of a relief as having reviewed 96 SMWS whiskies in the last 6 weeks I’m starting to yearn for some more gentle whisky in front of the telly out of a tumbler with no laptop… or maybe being able to talk to people while drinking!

Not that I’m complaining of course – there are over 170 single cask whiskies behind the bar in Greville street, all unique, all with their own interesting things to discover, atoms of distillery character, cask and finishing foibles, ages and styles. There’s a lot to explore, discover and understand, and that’s why I love SMWS.

November and December went off in Greville street like a bomb, the place really isn’t quite set up to hold that much stock, there’s whisky everywhere. And now they’ve done away with paper outturns they’re even more confused. 22 different casks arrived in time for the outturn and we were working off a packing slip until the outturn was published yesterday. I’ve tried them all*, notes are below, and marked as to which are in the outturn (on sale at 9am today!) and which are bar only. A few (all of which are worth getting) are small outturn and\or will go quickly, so you should be quick if you want them.

* actually not quite all, a 16 year old Caol Ila finished in virgin oak was a step too far, and negotiating with Phil over text message to get a photo of the label (with him several hours into drinking with Andreas) so I could find out what the damn thing was or was even called took too long. I’ll come back to that next week! It’s bar only anyway. [EDIT: this is done now, I’ve snuck it inbetween the others]

SMWS 54.43, Aberlour, Fresh and fruity frolics, 9 years old, 59.5% A⊕

4th April 2007, 228 bottles, first fill bourbon

Nose - Quite appealing this. Initially quite dry and wooded (splints, not quite fences) and you fear youth, but then a grown up and quite deliciously balanced sweetness comes - refreshers, beeswax and honey, digestive biscuits, earth, pencils. With time that earth comes through even more, with a touch of tobacco and some cocoa powder. Even better with water, more of that earthy chocolate, more orange.

Surprisingly delicious this, I hadn't meant to open with such a good one, I just went for the youngest! That is a particularly lovely nose, with old school cask and chocolate, not too sweet on the bourbon, and a delicious but considered delivery, just the kind of bourbon cask I enjoy. Highly recommended!

Nose - Slightly warmer, muskier, a little meatier than the 54 - a bit less exciting, a little simpler but has more cheap milk chocolate and a little washable kids paint. Much more interesting with water; new carpet, new gloss paint.

Body - Delicious in the initial delivery, with big, bright lacquered fruit - very FF bourbon. Then it degrades a little - sharp, sour woods. The simplicity of this isn't holding up to the earthy complexity of the Aberlour. A touch of overripe fruit and tobacco with water.

Finish - Long and slightly sour. Hints of fruity, musky cask coming through, perhaps pulled a little young. Hot alcohol at the end. Better with water but lacking midrange.

A decent dram, a little simplistic perhaps but nothing terribly wrong with it. A little more interesting with water but I would have left it in cask another decade.

SMWS 64.87, Mannochmore, Rays of Sunshine, 12 years old, 59.2% A-

26th May 2004, 222 bottles, first fill bourbon

Nose - A big difference here, this is all pink marshmallows, women's perfume and strawberry jam on wholemeal toast (my typical breakfast). On exhale there's this hint of very old refill bourbon cask. More fruit but simpler with water.

Body - Very sweet with apricot jam in the initial delivery, turning into toast with honey. Better with water, that sugar is more balanced with fruit and wood.

Finish - Medium long, with more apricot, rose water, a little almond and candy cigarettes. Quite astringent and a little tougher than I'm making out, although very drinkable.

Intense, fruity sweetness and purple marshmallows makes me think of that Penderyn that I'm having trouble finishing the bottle of, so I can't recommend this as a bottle buy, but worth a go at the bar.

SMWS 36.105, Benrinnes, Herbal delights, 13 years old, 55.8% A

14th August 2002, 198 bottles, first fill bourbon

Nose - Bright but earthy, chalky bonbons, fresh flowers (I'll say lilies because it's the only one I know), herbal (dried bay and oregano) and underneath all that, toffee chocolate sweetness. Lovely and floral. More chocolate toffee with water, more fruit (cut oranges), and a touch of swimming pool.

Body - Big fruit sweetness at the front, then toast and sesame, then a ripe, waxy funk, and a light feeling of peat. Cigarettes feature briefly (both unlit and then a touch of ashtray). An even better fruit, cask, petrol balance with water.

Finish - Medium with pickled chillies and sweets brought back from holiday (a bit weird, a bit well-travelled). Good bright spices and fruit/wood balance make it very drinkable.

A complex, interesting and well put together drinking whisky. Good tannins and lemon sour make it balance and bring you back for more.

Nose - Sweet, grapey and mineral - bright, fizzing and green. Back on the cheap icing here but with a juicy agave feel to it… but there's something more, like dissolving vitamin C tablets. I do like these young, mineral whiskies that are interesting and complete, and the wax, chalk and grape thing is compelling. More chalky with water, but more pronounced chocolate.

Nose - Really interesting again, my initial impression was one of that deep, winey sweetness you get in beef stew, but sourer, like you've just deglazed a pan with vinegar. With time, nuttier, charred raisins, pencil cases, angelica - perhaps fruit cake then. More freshly fruited with water.

Finish - Then toffee at the end, Sechuan peppercorns on the tip of the tongue, fizzing tannins at the side of the tongue.

Ordinary first fill bourbon padding. This could have done with a trip through the virginoakinator.

SMWS 76.130, Mortlach, Forever Young!, 28 years old, 53% A⊕+

24th September 1987, 186 bottles, refill bourbon – BAR ONLY

Nose - Old and rich, like a big old white Burgundy. Blusteringly old actually, this feels more like 35 with old leather chairs, well-polished wood, orange buttercream icing, and a dark, almost dank backnote of coffee beans in dark chocolate, drying sherry vinegar and old cask. The fruit here is good but it's all about the old wood, neat. With water, it opens up even more. It now reminds me, weirdly, of old Glenfiddich.

Finish - Dandelion stalks, cigar tobacco, baked apple, and effortless cask right to the end, outpacing the fruit. This reminds me of the finish on a 40 year old calvados. Quite zesty with repeated sips, I was waiting for this youth! It's a footnote.

This is old school amazing whisky. Intense, balanced, well matured (any longer might have been pushing it). Highly recommended, I will be getting this.

BUY

SMWS 72.50, Miltonduff, A Nomad's tent, 31 years old, 54.4% A⊕

27th November 1984, 210 bottles, refill bourbon

Nose - Where the Mortlach was blustering, this is fresh, important, bright. Starfruit, unripe green apple, Coconut Ice, royal icing and sugar crusted pistachios. A little fabric softener, some warm white wine, some flaked almonds. It's all a little austere though, I think this should have come before the Mortlach and really you need to take your time with it.

Finish - Long and perfectly balanced, that "posh dessert" thing goes right to the end. Finally, waxes.

This is a big, fruity, delicious whisky which you would smash, but it's not as good as the Mortlach in my opinion. Popular view at the time was the other way round though so… well I can only tell you what I thought!

Nose - Red, hard berries, jammy dodgers, a little Sangria and good hard/sour rye oak note. Cakey with time, but the American feeling of this whisky on the nose is quite exciting after the old stuff and presumably a good lead in to what's next. It gets better with time too, mellowing and integrating… to a point. Better with water, the parts come together more readily.

Body - Very interesting - playing a line right down the middle of spicy rye, middle-aged Scotch, black fruits and coffee. It's a bit of a jack of all trades, master of none though. I really like the sweetness and fruit but then… it's kind of arrested by one dimensional wood.

A schizophrenic whisky. Some of it is very delicious but it hasn't come together with the charred oak yet. Maybe it never would have, who knows! Definitely a good pick for the bar but there have been so many funky, fun Glen Morays this year that do this kind of thing better that I can't recommend it for a bottle. Certainly try it at the bar. Darren loved it.

Nose - Much more classical on the nose, with sweet tobacco, planed oak, ripe Victoria plums and frost blown raspberries out of the freezer. There is a disconcerting youth nudging in here, with hollow cereal and yellow wood, but it's pushed back by fruit and wham bars. Sweeter and fruitier with water.

Nose - Very strange. Like you took a big old whisky and splashed vinegar on your hands before smelling it. There's waxy tropical fruit bubbling away underneath very clear cigar tobacco, fence panel next to candle wax, new gardening compost with baked, nearly mouldy apples. It's more rotten on exhale than inhale, that cigar on inhale is very special, but the wax, fruit and wood are all at odds. Better fruits and integration with water, the apple is less rotten too. Reminds me of floor boards being stained, or balsa wood. It’s also very strangely formic.

Body - Very interesting - more of the same though really, baked apples, cigars, toffee oak, camp coffee plus cold red wine and milliput. With time, peach sweets and red apple skin. With water, skin on rice pudding and stewed tea.

Finish - Medium, hot and musky, with lots of spongey wood.

I invented a new mark for this. It's an enormous car crash but quite interesting and really drinkable nonetheless. I like the fruit, I like the old Longmorn, I actually quite like the virgin oak but it doesn't belong with the first two. And hats off to Euan for having the stones to do this: "30 year old, refill bourbon Longmorn, 72 bottles… finished in Virgin Oak".

Body - Intensely polished, actually knocking on fly spray (if you can remember what that smells like), quite sharp and weird, quite chemical. Although, what do I know… better with wood but it's outclassed by everything else today.

Finish - Medium-short, medicinal. Hints of wax near the end but nothing to write home about.

I've little interest in this, it isn't whisky and it isn't worth the units. Unlike the next one…

SMWS C3.1, A fragrant ramble, Extra Old, 50.9%

Cognac Grande Champagne, 558 bottles, Cognac barrel.

Nose - Much more interesting, sour and volatile like marker pens, but far bigger, fruitier and better integrated. This is more like November's Cognac (C1.2), with stewed apples and libraries galore. There's a lovely herbal element to this; slightly cooked with pastry, green olives, cut grass. Better with water, more pastry, absolutely delicious.

Nose - You can just picture the tiny oak casks here. Initially this is pure hollow oak (the colour is fabulous by the way). Start digging, there's charred pineapple, UHU glue… wood glue? I want to say cake but its more meaty, like sausage meat goes after long smoking with really fruity BBQ sauce. With time this really grows on you, delicious.

This is extraordinary. How? Tiny casks and extreme weather conditions I guess.

BUY

SMWS RW1.1, Rye from FEW Distillery?, Simply supermassive, 3 years old, 61.8% A

4th April 2013, 96 bottles, new charred oak. Rye whisky! I am (quite reliably I think) led to believe that this is Rye whiskey from FEW distillery but don’t know for sure.

Nose - Pure milk chocolate on the nose, quite rich and creamy, the wood is much softer here, better integrated. Ripe pear, rose petals and almost overripe peach, some cask wax with digging, amazing to get that after 3 years. Coffee, blackcurrants, dark chocolate with time.

Body - Sharper, but richer than the B4.3, there is a really deep creamy note to this with that rye. Cherry chocolate cake with double cream, blackcurrant sorbet. Quite spicy too, like a black pepper, chilli glaze.

Finish - White wine, tobacco, lemon sorbet.

Again, this is delicious. Not as remarkable as the B4.3 but really chuggable, I could drink more of this in an evening than the bourbon.

Body - Certainly less restrained, burnt candles and wicks, ancient waxy cask, cut cherries and then the toasty peat. There's a herbal quality here too, with cucumber, washing chives, pea pods. For some reason I could see this in the HP Fire bottle.

Finish - Big, rich, complete, red.

It is delicious. It's a bit restrained on the nose but the delivery (waxy, intense peat and oak, red fruit) is so remarkable I can forgive it. And it's the wax and red fruits that really make it stand out. Recommended - bar and bottle.

BUY

Two Bowmores next, only the first of which is in the outturn. The outturn one was distilled and bottled a year before the bar only one, and they’re completely different. Both are excellent to be honest, one’s shy but elegant, the other’s bigger, sweeter but more obviously delicious.

Finish - Slightly funky, very long with seafood and (very clearly) Marie Rose sauce. It gets sweeter as the finish develops, fruit salad chews at the end.

Quite a restrained Bowmore, but well-judged and delicious to drink.

BUY

SMWS 3.295, Bowmore, Bouquets and spades, 20 years old, 54.6% A⊕

5th April 1996, 228 bottles, refill bourbon (a year minus one day after the previous one) – BAR ONLY

Nose - Much riper, more waxes, more refreshers, maybe even a touch of blessed parmas? Icing sugar and chalk take the edge off a bit. The 274 is more waxy and austere than this, which more obviously "old Bowmore" and a lot classier for it.

Body - Ripe and delicious, like Haribo dunked in white wine, but with a surprisingly floral edge, and fruity too (star fruit and pineapple). The delivery on the 274 is more restrained but this is a mature blockbuster (and even better with water).

Finish - Long and deliciously sweet, great balance of gentle peat and fruit and very long oils.

More fruits, oils and just bigger in every way than the 274, this is very different indeed and also well recommended. Bar only so get some while you can.

Body - Hot, spicy, peppery, slightly mucky and earthy (and not in a good way). The second sip is a lot better, much more jammy fruit, but I can't get my head round this very young balsa, cigar, biscuit thing. Hints of the dreaded Adnams whisky here, although slightly better sweetness.

Finish - Medium, most of that is sour cereal and sour hard sweets. Very hot.

Finish - Long and really sweet, that pineapple really gelling with the peat. Aspirin at the end, omnipresent charred oak.

Delicious stuff, really fruity. Took a while to get going though.

SMWS 29.204, Laphroaig, A day at the beach, 18 years old, 53.6% A+

3rd December 1997, 276 bottles, refill bourbon – BAR ONLY

Nose - Unexpectedly sweet and bright, like a fresh Christmas cake - royal icing, marzipan and fruitcake, but still moist and vibrant. Sauvignon blanc, fizzers and limestone… and melon flesh… and swimming pool up the nose. Part of this is disappointingly light, part is excitingly bright.

Body - At first, gentle with light cereal and then, enormously, extraordinarily peated! Then back to lemon and lime pastry and a touch of bandage, with tiny chorizo sausages and lots of black pepper. Sweeter, fruitier with water, and just a hint of sulphur.

Finish - Slightly fetid, a touch of bandage, and quite a lot of lemon juice. Lots of lemon and peat at the end - the finish seems to die off quickly but with repeated sips there's that intense, lingering peat and even some TCP.

More intensely peaty that TCP'y, it's great to get an intense Laphroaig although this more brutal than classical.